Here are some of the highlights of the night sky in August: 9 PM southern sky – Mars and Saturn moving toward the western horizon after sunset, moving closer together as the month progresses 9 PM western sky – August 31 – Mars, Saturn and the crescent Moon in a triple conjunction 5:45 AM eastern … [Read more…]
The Summer Triangle is one of the most familiar patterns in the northern summer night sky. The three bright stars that mark the vertices of the Summer Triangle are Altair, Deneb, and Vega, the brightest stars in the constellations Aquila, Cygnus, and Lyra. The star pattern makes it easy to locate each of the three … [Read more…]
Altair, or Alpha Aquilae, is the brightest star in the constellation Aquila, the Eagle. It lies only 16.7 light years from Earth. The star has a visual magnitude of 0.77. Along with the stars Vega in Lyra constellation and Deneb in Cygnus, Altair forms the Summer Triangle, a prominent asterism in the northern hemisphere. It … [Read more…]
Here are the highlights of the night sky in August: 8:30 PM western sky – Venus over the western horizon at twilight, and Saturn slightly higher in the sky, moving toward the western horizon in the evening 10 PM southeastern sky – Lyra constellation with the bright stars Vega and Epsilon Lyrae (the Double Double), … [Read more…]
The Phantom Streak Nebula (NGC 6741) is a planetary nebula located in Aquila constellation (the Eagle). It lies approximately 7,000 light years from Earth. The nebula was discovered by American astronomer and physicist Edward Charles Pickering in 1882. It is a bright, but relatively small object, with an apparent size of 0.1 arc minutes and … [Read more…]